Salvage

by Chris Howard

  Levesgue ignored the captains, continuing in a quiet voice. “Line up ,please, shoulder to shoulder. I have introduced myself to you.” He turned to his right. “Starting with the Marcene, say your full name and the nature of your work onboard.”

  He was looking directly at Angelo, who glanced at Wilraven and then said, “Angelo Gorriaga, first officer on Marcene.”

  They went through the entire crew of both vessels, standard ships op crews: the ABs—able seamen, engineers—in the literal running-the-engine sense; two licensed big crane operators, Erich Hallidan and Dewayne Binman, with Royce Cordell and a couple of ABs—Tam Thadison and Mitch Saverese—on support; the submersibles team—remotely operated vehicle engineers and support crew who handled the lines and maintenance; and the dive team, with a handful of maintenance personnel led by Dive Master Andres Jeanpierre. Dr. Aleksander Kozcera, an MD from Warsaw, primarily supported the dive team and managed the use of the decompression chamber.

  There was a broad mix of nationalities. More than half of the combined crews were American: welder Jack Minier; Walker Cordel, Jerald Barke and others on the crane crew; two brothers, Miles and Steven Shantz, both green ABs on the Marcene crew; and Inda Rehlander, who was ROV team leader on Irabarren. She was blond, blue-eyed, and had about as much of a German accent as Trinidadian Captain DuFour. Jeannetta Laro, originally from Egypt, was the Irabarren’s first mate, and she ran navigation and shipboard ops with Chief Engineer Aramesh Satapathy from Chennai—Aramesh, at age seven, had been dragged out to sea by the return draw of a tsunami, presumed dead, and when he surfed into the flooded city streets the next day, his mother said she knew he was meant to be at sea.

  Ranav Dasari—from Kanhangad, India—was the Irabarren’s radio engineer and doubled as cook. Old Oladosu Eze was Nigerian and cook on the Marcene. Aro Taketa on the ROV team was Japanese from Yokosuka, where he’d apparently picked up fluent English—Yokosuka being a US Navy base in Japan. Damien Faurot, French, and Telly Halechko, Russian, were both divers under Canadian Andres Jeanpierre, a former Marine Commando, one of several among the two vessels’ crews who had prior military experience.

  With a quickly held-in sigh, Wilraven was happy that both Andres and his first, Angelo, had kept their pasts to themselves. He glanced around and then tried to go through the crews in his head. Some of them were missing, including the Marcene’s Chief Engineer.

  After a long space of silence that filled the air when the crews were done with introductions, Captain Wilraven spoke up, staring straight ahead—specifically not looking at the cadaver bag on Irabarren’s deck. “And Clark Seiffert, who was an engineer on the ROV team.”

  A few heads whipped around to glare at Marcene’s captain—there was at least some suspicion that Wilraven was the one who had driven Clark to suicide—along with some grumbling and outrage that Wilraven would be the one to call the loss of Clark to their attention.

  The question that sat like a lump of lead at the front of Wilraven’s mind was: Would this have happened if he hadn’t pissed off Levesgue last night? He knew Adam DuFour was thinking the exact thought, and he wouldn’t meet the Irabarren captain’s eyes.

  The rest of the crew stood quietly, watching Levesgue for the next move, with some resigned whispering and nodding heads.

  Levesgue sighed, but it was an annoyed sigh. He had apparently picked up some of the intent in the whispering. “No, we are not calling the Coast Guard or anyone else. This—” he pointed down at the shapeless black bag that held the body of Clark Seiffert “—will go on the floor in the cooler until we’re done here.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Cut Off

  Clark Seiffert’s body had been cleared way—stowed in the refrigerator closet on Marcene, and the deck scrubbed of any sign that a man had died in the middle of the night.

  The hi-res deep sea scans with some particularly sharp imagery came back at 7:00 a.m. from the AUVs, autonomous underwater vehicles that had worked tirelessly through the same night.

  It took two hours for Inda and her team to go through the scans and find what they were looking for. But there it was, clear as water. Circled in highlighter yellow on the giant wall screens in the ROV shed. The eighty-meter-long Serina Beliz was exactly where Corkran had said she would be, resting upright at 1227 meters, nineteen miles off the coast of Cuba, just outside territorial water.

  Wilraven caught Inda’s eye. “Send down the ROVs and two of the crawlers with the sling bags.”

  Inda nodded and waved over Aro Taketa. “You take Wendolyn on the port. I’ll go with Dess on starboard.” Then she called Dewayne on Crane One to get the crawlers ready to drop.

  Crawlers were small, meter-long, semi-autonomous tracked vehicles for floor work: mainly excavation, tunneling, pipe or wire examination and running. Wilraven and DuFour used them to run cables or lift bags underneath a bottomed vessel.

  Given the depth it would take a while for the ROVs and crawlers to reach Serina. Wilraven crossed Irabarren’s deck, ignoring a couple suspicious looks from her crew. He climbed the gangway to Marcene, and passed Levesgue leaning on the portside rail, watching the salvage crews come together and get their gear into the water.

  “Beautiful morning, isn’t it, Captain Wilraven?”

  Wilraven didn’t stop. “Not really. No.”

  He was just coming around the curve of the hull toward the bow when Marcene’s communications engineer Paulina Hanse leaned out of the radio room above him, a serious look in her eye, her long hair pulled through and spilling over the top of a wide, vibrant green headband. Paulina was a Namibian radio hacker in her forties who had been on Marcene before he had taken over as captain. She knew the ship as well as anyone. She also knew comm gear like no one on board.

  Paulina caught his eye, gave him a slight nod, one side of her mouth pulling tight to let him know something was bothering her.

  He didn’t respond, just kept walking—afraid he’d be seen by Levesgue or one of the others, maybe Goatee Boy with his gun pasted to his chest, ready to draw.

  Fucking sociopaths for a security team were making him paranoid. Every out-of-place glance or word could be taken as insurgency. Who would be the next one strung up by the neck on Crane Two? He was fairly sure Levesgue wouldn’t kill the captains—himself or DuFour—before they had lifted the Serina. Maybe one of them? Did they need two captains?

  He had already set out a few goals, first of which was to call the charterer and ask him what the hell was up with his security team, and why did they seem to be off the rails before they had set foot on Marcene’s deck? Levesgue had made it pretty clear that he was working on Mr. Corkran’s direct orders. Corkran wanted the ship raised, and that meant securing the salvage operation. But were the security guys supposed to immediately turn on the operation they were supposed to be protecting?

  He had to talk to Corkran. This was either a horribly tragic misunderstanding, or these guys weren’t really working for Corkran. Or Corkran was a just a fucking nutjob, and everything was going according to his plans. Suddenly that seemed more plausible than the other options, and it chilled him.

  Wilraven paused at the point of the bow, then came back around the starboard side of Marcene, taking the stairs up and stopping in at the radio room as if it was perfectly natural to check on how things were going.

  “Satellite phones are dead in the water, Captain. I just tried my Globalstar. It’s on, just not receiving or broadcasting. I talked to Ranav. There’s an Iridium set on Irabarren that’s a no-go. Marine VHF is out.”

  Wilraven pulled the handset off his belt, turned up the volume, and heard the crane team chattering back and forth with the crawler handlers. Things were moving.

  “The walkie-talkies are all functional, but their normal wattage is limited to a mile or so around. No way to communicate with anything but another vessel close enough to spit on. The GAI-Tronics phone is working, so we can do crew alerts, public address stuff, but nothing is outgoing and very little incoming. Whatever
these guys brought with them, they’ve turned it on, and it’s fucking with the communications. Sorry, Cap.”

  “No transponder?”

  “No AIS.”

  He scowled at that. The Automatic Identification System was required for ship tracking and collision avoidance “We’re receiving. The displays on the bridge are showing traffic.”

  “Doubt we’re sending anything out.”

  Wilraven whispered, “Thanks, Paulina. Have you told anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “Please don’t. Not yet.” He took a deep breath and tried to sound like everything was normal. “Have we got any incoming calls? I should be getting one from the charterer.”

  “Nothing.” She shrugged. “Don’t know if you can.”

  He continued in a purposeful walk around his ship.

  We’re out here with killers, cut off from the rest of the world.

  He looked out to sea, empty to the horizon on the starboard side of Marcene. She was tied up on Irabarren’s north-facing side. There wouldn’t be much sea traffic in that direction. To the west, across the Yucatan, there had to be a reasonable amount, some of it visible from the deck of the crane platform. The strait just wasn’t that wide.

  If another vessel could see them, and realize that Marcene and Irabarren weren’t showing up on their screens, there might be some contact, or even a Coast Guard report—probably not while a ship was under way, but word may reach some of the Gulf ports.

  Wilraven shook his head. Slim chance of that. They just might assume this was a Cuban operation. We’re certainly close enough to the damn boundary.

  What about April and the supplies she’s supposed to be bringing? She should be out to see us again in three or four days. What about Corkran mentioning more of the security team that may rotate in for the current team? How are they supposed to communicate? Corkran demanded to be informed before we do anything with the Serina. How’s that going to happen?

  Wilraven jumped the stairs in three bounds, hit the main deck at a jog, and came around the portside to face Levesgue. He slowed but didn’t stop until he was threateningly close to the old soldier.

  “Why?”

  Levesgue pivoted smoothly, edged one foot back to strengthen his stance. His hands remained open, loose, ready to grab the captain and do some damage.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you do it? Was it because I pissed on your introduction to Adam DuFour?”

  Levesgue relaxed a little, let part of a smile onto his lips. “You mean the kid who killed himself?” He shook his head in mock sorrow. “Really sad how fragile some of these guys are.” He shrugged. “You just never know when they’re going to break and end it all.”

  Wilraven tried to keep his voice even, straining to hold back tears. It was so difficult to believe, he had to say it aloud. “You’re making fun of killing a bright young man?”

  Levesgue shrugged again, gesturing toward Wilraven. “Some lessons are hard to learn without a strong message.” He tilted his head toward the captain. “Some people are just a bit too thick to get through to with threats alone. Some people need an extra shot of motivation.”

  “You think . . . ” The captain felt his anger roiling up, but Levesgue cut it off with a chopping motion. Something was happening.

  “Shut up.” The soldier stepped back, holding up one hand, staring into the distance as if listen to something. He sub-vocalized a command, nodding to someone’s response. He signaled something with his other hand.

  Wilraven looked at Levesgue, confused for a second, and then the soldier suddenly snapped back into reality, locking gazes with the captain. He pointed to the Irabarren.

  “You think I killed your computer programmer. That’s fine. If it helps you do your job.” Levesgue jabbed a finger at Wilraven. “But you breathe a word about any of your assumptions or suspicions and you’re next, Captain.” He swung his arm away, toward the cranes. “Now go. Warn your crew. We have some company from our Cuban neighbors.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Toymaker

  Andreden hurried in from his car, a matte blue electric coupe. He weaved his way through a few other parked vehicles in the Knowledgenix front lot. Martin’s Jaguar was already there. Andreden was shoving his backpack higher over his shoulder, turning to set the alarm on his car, when Laeina slid out of an orange Ford SUV, which he knew Rebekah Kahley drove. Kahley was one of Knowledgenix’s senior researchers, working on the Personifex project.

  Andreden stopped, mouth starting to fall open. Even inside the security fencing, everyone usually locked and alarmed their cars. And yet there was Laeina, sitting comfortably in someone else’s car as if she owned it.

  She shut the door. “Good morning, Mr. Andreden.”

  He stopped, set down his backpack.

  “Laeina.”

  “Have you given my proposal some thought? If it is the cost, I will pay it.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s not that.” He had already started his own exploration, a long research conversation with MISTIC and the Cons. He had hired an investigator to look into the name Adista used in any kind of transaction anywhere along east and west coasts. Laeina said her sister wouldn’t have left the sea for long, so Andreden had steered the investigator toward ports and ocean-accessible coastline: Washington, Oregon, California, and Maine to Florida.

  Laeina pulled in a deep breath, clearly upset. “Is it the plans? Are they not detailed enough?”

  Andreden glanced over at the wide blue glass entrance to Knowledgenix. “No, it’s just . . . ”

  “I am not doing this for you or me. I am doing this for my sister, Mr. Andreden, and I’m trading the only things of value I have. My designs for toys.”

  Andreden rubbed his eyes, clearing them. “You’re a toymaker? The sub Theo and I caught in the bay the other day . . . That’s a toy?”

  She was scowling back at him, as if there was some confusion over how serious she was about finding her sister. Or perhaps some questions about her ability to create the subs.

  Very carefully she said, “Yes. I make toys.” Her tone shifted to a mix of suspicion and anger. “Do you not believe that I make them? Do you believe I am attempting to deceive you?”

  Shocked, Andreden had his hands up, placating. “Absolutely not. The things I have seen you do . . . That’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to tell you is, you have to see how this looks to me. Your toys are more advanced than any underwater vehicle I have ever seen—and I’ve seen quite a few. I have personally designed and built some of the most advanced machines on the planet. You appear out of the blue—literally.” He waved to the front gates. “You walk through Knowledgenix security any time you feel like it. You live in the ocean. You have webbing between your fingers, for fuck’s sake . . . ”

  “And?” she kept her serious tone. She clearly understood that he had more to say.

  “And you have to see the position I’m in. I run this company. I—we, Martin and I—work in a very secure engineering world, with multi-million-dollar R&D projects, intellectual property assessments, slow, incremental progress with the occasional technology jump forward. We don’t live in a world where ocean-dwelling toymakers with missing sisters show up to offer super-advanced tech in exchange for government research and private investigation—with a story about the suspicious deaths of those who have already tried to find answers, something involving a weird Navy project called Lenient Luck.”

  He was out of breath when he finished, and Laeina gave him a moment to calm down before replying. “Perhaps you don’t live in it, but that is the world in which I live.” She was pointing to the Monterey Bay beyond the Knowledgenix buildings. “If you would like to see more of it, I can show you.”

  He shrugged.

  Laeina’s expression changed abruptly. She kept her gaze pinned to Andreden, her scowl deepening, but there was a new curiosity there. “You said ‘Navy project’ rather than government project. Have you discovered something new?”
>
  Andreden looked doubtful. “Not really. Only enough to know there’s a running project under the Department of the Navy called Lenient Luck. That’s all MISTIC would tell us.”

  “MISTIC?”

  “It stands for something—massively-integrated something inquiry construct. It’s a big human-thought based social and knowledge relationship gathering system with some crazy pattern matching.” That was always the question, what’s MISTIC? Andreden waved half-heartedly, going with the standard lines he had used a dozen times. “There’s several of them. Some call them ‘Cons.’ Came out of a joint US and Canada thing, combining Canada’s Convenir Project with . . . ”

  Andreden’s voice drifted off because he had lost Laeina. Not to boredom or incomprehension. She wasn’t even paying attention to him anymore. She was looking fixedly off to the east, one hand lifting slowly, fingers unfolding as if she was about to catch something—something more important than a global pattern matching system was happening in the low hills inland from the company.

  Then he heard a dull thud. Felt it, a spike of pressure in the clear California air. Laeina grunted, a deep shudder of noise from her throat. She shook as if someone had punched her. The sun dimmed for a second. The air around them grew thick, diffusing the light.

  Laeina’s hand was open right in front of his face; he could see through the sheer angle of skin between her spread fingers.

  Standing in the air, inches from her open palm, was a bullet, a big copper-jacketed piece of death with a paler metal tip. It was hot, ribbons of smoke rolling off it. Another thud and a second bullet stacked up behind the first, leaving an inch gap between the two.

  Andreden stared at them. Had to be .50 caliber rounds.

  Laeina grunted against the strain, looking over at him. “I would duck behind these cars, because it appears someone wants to kill you, Mr. Andreden.” She gestured to the bullets. “These are being fired from a large gun by a man at the crest of that hill with the two trees. Do you want me to stop him?”